"What on earth has given opera its prestige in western civilisation — a prestige that has outlasted so many different fashions and ways of thought? Why are people prepared to sit silently for three hours listening to a performance of which they do not understand a word and of which they very seldom know the plot? Why do quite small towns all over Germany and Italy still devote a large portion of their budgets to this irrational entertainment? Partly, of course, because it is a display of skill, like a football match. But chiefly, I think, because it is irrational. "What is too silly to be said may be sung" — well, yes; but what is too subtle to be said, or too deeply felt, or too revealing or too mysterious — these things can also be sung and can only be sung."
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Kenneth Clark
Kenneth McKenzie Clark, Baron Clark of Saltwood, OM, CH, KCB, FBA (13 July 1903 – 21 May 1983) was an English art historian and director of London's National Gallery (1934–1945) who is remembered for his television series Civilisation first broadcast in 1969.
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